HARTELIUS, E. Johanna

Winter 2006, pages 55 - 76

"Of What Use is a Gold Key?" Unlocking Discourses in Rhetorical Pedagogy

Applying a theory of homology to rhetorical pedagogy, this article suggests that Plato's and Augustine's discursive methods. dialectic and hermeneutics/homiletics respectively. function as unlocking devices via their formal structures. Dialectics unlock the discourses produced in/about the sensory world to reveal a high level of material reality; hermeneutics/homiletics unlock Biblical ambiguities to produce a truer level of insight. Unlocking discourses, thus, give access to knowledge that would otherwise lie beyond reach for the untrained. The attention to form permits a different perspective on interpretation and pedagogy than more traditional approaches because it emphasizes audience's cognitive and "erotic" response to form and style.